The Last of the Numbers, and the Legacy of the Stand
by ItachiRules16
Summary: My vision of Six's death and the battle preceding it.


So I need this outta my head so I can better work on my main projects. This is a one-shot, if I forget to put it in the description.

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I watched as, out in the far distance, several Scarab tanks patrolled the now wastes of Reach, killing off a straggler here and there. Around me, burned, bludgeoned and broken, lay the bodies of numerous soldiers, Spartans and Marines. Seeing the fallen Spartans my rage built up, finger tightening on my assault rifle as I approached a pair of unaware Elites. They were merely minors and I wanted the big boys to come for me. I wanted the Covenant to feel the sting that I would deal and a few Minor Elites were nothing. Smiling, I approached them silently.

I lunged forward, taking the left Elite in my hand and slamming my knife into his skull in a flash, his shields shattering in a blue flash which sent tingles up my arm. From the energy or adrenaline I couldn't tell yet. As the second turned I looked at him calmly, his eyes widening as he leapt away from me. I calmly kicked his friend's corpse away, firing a rifle round into his back more to assure he was enraged than the corpse was a corpse. "Come on bastard. Call your buddies."

I smirked as he lifted his rifle, garbling in his odd language before firing a burst of blue plasma. I moved my shoulder easily out of the way, smirking as it sailed past before stepping into his reach and drawing my magnum. He roared as I shoved it into his mouth, arms flailing, before I fired one shot. The blood spattered across my shoulder as the now-corpse collapsed against me. As it drooped, I smirked again.

I waited fifteen minutes, standing atop the small-ish antenna array I had been setting my defense around not ten yards from the fresh corpses of the Elites. Finally I saw several phantoms descending to my area, stopping off around thirty yards east of me and dropping soldiers off. Several Elite minors and two full Grunt squads as well as a General and Zealot emerging from the dust to my south-east.

I downed the Grunts quickly enough, precise shots from my Magnum eviscerating their skull while they scrambled for cover. The two Elite Minors fell under a rattle of fire from my mounted machine gun, sending blood and limbs arching through the air. The Zealot roared, drawing his blade as he charged me while simultaneously firing a plasma rifle with his off hand. I rolled a foot to my left, grabbing my assault rifle from my back and peppering him as he moved. A foot from me his shields dropped and I hobbled him with all but two of my remaining rounds before planting the last pair into his roaring maw. As he choked on his own blood I kicked his blade away, the damn thing was locked by the bastard, and I turned in time to see the general slam his gauntlet into my visor, my motion tracker having gone out when Dot did.

I rolled with it, sprawling in the dirt several feet away and rising with a punch from my right hand which, due to the speed of it, caught the General by surprise enough to stun him with the punch. I followed it up by snapping his neck with the same hand. I turned as two more phantoms dropped off another load of troops along with a Wraith.

I burned through the last of my rifle's rounds downing the grunts and their Elite masters, leaving another dozen corpses, or soon to be corpses, littering the field as a Wraith shot arced towards me. I rolled easily away, watching the dirt where I had been turn to glass and scalded metal from the small building. I turned as an Elite de-cloaked beside me, fist cocked back with a small energy dagger gripped in it. My eyes widened as it swung at my head and I leaned backwards as it cut through my visor. Half blinded I snapped his arm, ending his roar of pain an instant later by snapping his neck. Hearing plasma whistle towards me I dove to my left, away from the blasted dirt and scrambled with my now destroyed helmet. As I tossed it aside I grabbed a DMR from a nearby trooper's corpse and downed three Grunts and an Elite as they charged me, firing wildly, before turning and firing it one handed at another Elite and a Jackal, killing both with the last rounds and flinging the weapon at an Ultra who batted it away as I rushed back to the building, a second blast from the Wraith chewing up a portion of it as I entered and towing me away.

Ignoring the burns on my face, I grabbed a grenade and flung it out the door. The following blast brought several pained screams as I grabbed a new assault rifle and a shotgun before rushing out the other side of the building. Just as I got away from it, it was slagged by yet another Wraith blast.

My heat jumped into my throat as I saw two lumbering forms emerge from the smoke. Hunters. One was heavily wounded and missing it's arm and head. The other was merely missing its shield. Both were still dangerous, but luckily I still had several grenades I had 'borrowed' from some grunts. I leapt side as they came in close, swinging their arms and arcing plasma through the air, and attached all four of my grenades to each of their backs. The explosion sent their bodies reeling apart and painted the defunct truck and the dirt orange. It also marred my black paint.

Raising my rifle I blasted a pair of grunts who thought themselves hidden and looked for the next batch. There were none which puzzled me. Right up until a lance of blue plasma cracked across my leg, searing through the flesh. Stifling a scream I dropped to one knee just as an Elite de-cloaked beside me, aiming a kick to my skull. I latched onto it and snapped it at the knee, scrabbling across it and snapping it's wrist to dislodge the energy sword he was attempting to slash at me with. I silenced the enraged roar with a crushing punch which shattered its skull. Turning him over I grabbed his near empty Carbine and fired at the sniper the shot struck its leg and it stumbled, causing its second shot to sear along my left arm, carving through the armor down the side of my upper arm.

Shrugging off the purely cosmetic damages, I fired again, this one caught it in the skull as it rose and splattered its brains across the dirt. I gasped as I tried to rise and looked about for some sort of treatment for my leg. A medical pack dropped by my shoulder as I rolled to my side. Standing there was a wounded trooper. She smirked as she slid down to sit against the defunct truck. "Heard the fight and figured whoever it was might need help." She said arm limp in her lap as her right arm drew a magnum, "Give them hell Spartan." And with that she leveled it against her skull and fired.

My eyes widened as saw her hand drop the magnum into her lap. After using the medical it, numbing the pain enough to stand, I saw her body going cold. Her name had been Tori Jackson, from her tags. Just another name to carve into an Elite.

I turned to a group of lumbering brutes, five in total, who I downed easily enough with Tori's magnum and my own. They fell with little problem, save a chieftain who roared back at her and lifted a spiker. The rounds arced past me save one that, when I fired my right magnum, dug into my shoulder. As the Brute dropped another Phantom dropped off a group of Elites. All zealots save one. An Elite Shipmaster stood in their midst. I drew my shotgun as the zealots charged towards me all save one who stood by the Shipmaster. One blast caught the first Zealot point blank in the chest, sending it to the ground with lungs full of its own blood. The second and third each found their home similarly while the fourth shattered both the legs of the next and the next tore its skull apart as it fell. From behind me an Ultra swiped at my legs, nicking me as I tried to evade. It gutted my shotgun as I tried to fire, the blast still tearing away its off arm and I kick it away as it died. Drawing my assault rifle I downed another zealot as it charged before turning and stumbling back from a grenade blast. I dropped my rifle as I scrambled in the dirt before grabbing it again. As I stood I gunned down an approaching Ultra before spinning to smash another Elite I did not have time to recognize's head with my rifle. As I breathed another breath, an arc of plasma crashed against my shoulder. Stifling a scream, which resulted in a grunt, I turned to fire on it as a second one burned across my chest. I fired on it, managing to down it by my feet as an Ultra shoved me to my back.

I kicked it away as it moved in for the kill as it stumbled back a Zealot latched onto me, energy blade ready to take my head. I punched it across the jaw, crushing part of it, as the Ultra latched onto my wounded left arm with all its strength, pinning me down as the Zealot moved back in for the kill. The small dual pronged energy blade in its wrist burned through my chest plate and, with a dry whir, my vision went black. The last thing I saw was the Zealots nod of…. Was that approval? And then, blackness.


End file.
